All the news on the Earth's largest environment.

Solar eclipse. From Wikimedia commons. On July 20th, 1963, three scientists sat on a research ship 200 miles south of Woods Hole, MA, waiting for something remarkable. They were nearly 4000m above the ...

Readers of DSN may think they know my favorite organism. Did you guess the giant isopod or did you guess the giant squid? Those beasties are truly fantastic. Large and dwelling in the deep oceans, ...

Magnapinna squids are one of the deep-sea more ethereal creatures. Little is known of these squid as very few have ever been captured, although over the last decade with the increased usage of ...

A comment on Reddit reminded me of a question that I have received many times. The question is always a good one because it stems from knowledge and deductive reasoning. The said question requires one ...

Megalodon (Carcharocles megalodon) is the largest shark, at a magnificent maximum length of 18 meters (59 feet), to ever have dwelled in the oceans. We know primarily about Megalodon’s existence ...

Earlier this year I warned that The Ocean Cleanup would catch and kill floating marine life. This week they announced they’re collecting plastic, and their picture shows HUNDREDS of floating animals ...

Delving into the evolutionary past of the enigmatic deep-sea vampire squid, Vampyroteuthis infernalis, has long been a pursuit shrouded in mystery. However, recent discoveries, such as a remarkable ...

Like most deep-sea biologists, I have a large collection of decorated Styrofoam cups. A couple dozen line the bookshelf of my office, each displaying a rainbow of Sharpie colors. Each cup is ...

From the study, “The majority of the DDT+ compounds (87%, n = 13) detected in the sediment and biota were previously detected in [local] birds and marine mammals. This discovery is critical and ...

Biologists have a habit of naming things after cool animals. Cars named after comb jellies, internet passwords after giant squid. Most of these names I recognized, but then I saw my friend’s wifi ...

A new species of deep-sea cucumber has over 100 feet in alternating two or three rows. This means of course that when it plays the This Little Piggy nursery rhyme it needs to repeat it 25 times. The ...